HYPNOTISM AND SUGGESTION IN DAILY LIFE, EDUCATION, AND MEDICAL PRACTICE BY BERNARD HOLLANDER, M.D. S,i • I ,l,t :I LONDON.~~~~~~SACPIMN& SI OSL No.~~~~~~IMNCRE, 1 . .11 = WOOD Li - ,USEUM 4 Accession .no ff?,n7 ui H 7,/ PRINTrED BY Silt ISAAC PITMAN & SONS. LTn., LONDON, BATH AND NEW YORK . 1910 * * * . * . ' . ."1 . ... PREFACE HAVING been devoted to the study of hypnotism for about thirty years, and having practised it for the treatment of nervous and mental disorders for about fifteen years, my views, investigations and experiences may be of public interest and of some value to students of this still very mysterious and little explored subject, the more so since there is no school of hypnotism in London, not even a place where a systematic course of lectures can be heard or demonstrations witnessed, and there are very few avowed- medical practitioners of hypnotism and therapeutic suggestion in the whole of Great Britain, as compared with France and Germany. For these reasons, this handbook, written at the request of Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, the publishers, should meet the needs of those desirous of information on hypnotism and suggestion, and the curious and wonderful effects that can be produced by them. There are two aspects of hypnotism, which must be kept distinct: one, the value of the study of its psychological phenomena; the other, the value of hyp- notism as a therapeutic agent for the amelioration and cure of certain nervous and mental disorders. Hyp- notism being practised almost exclusively by medical men nowadays, greater stress has been laid on its therapeutic value than on the value of the psycho- logical phenomena; but I have treated both in this work, and recorded some extraordinary results attained vi PREFACE by me, similar to those of the old mesmeric and hyp- notic schools, which by our modem investigators are either neglected or on account of the methods they employ for inducing hypnotism, they have failed to reproduce. Just as poisons and anaesthetics may be employed medically for the public good and criminally to the public danger, so hypnotism is a powerful agent for good, but also for evil. In the manner in which it is used by medical men it is a safe cure for certain mental and nervous disorders for which drugs alone are in- efficient, but it can also be employed by " criminal" hypnotists to further their own ends. This warning is necessary in the public welfare, for if the investigation of hypnotism is neglected by qualified medical men, to whom a high moral reputation and public esteem is a necessity of existence, we have no guarantee that it may not be practised secretly by immoral and criminal characters, who, owing to the general ignorance of the subject, will escape the punishment which is their due. BERNARD HOLLANDER, M.D. 57 WmPOLErSTREET, LONDON, W. 1st May, 1910. CONTENTS CHAP. FAGe PREFACE . v I. THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND . 1 II. THE NATURE OF SUGGESTION . 16 III. UNIVERSAL SUGGESTIBILITY . 25 IV. AUTO-SUGGESTION AND MENTAL DISCIPLINE 37 V. METHODS OF SUGGESTION AND HYPNOSIS . 47 VI. THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF THE HYPNOTIC STATE . 58 VII. ORDINARY HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA . 71 VIII. POST-HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION . 87 IX. EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA OF HYPNOTISM 98 X. CLAIRVOYANCE . 118 XI. THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE . 130 XII. APPARITIONS . 144 XIII. MESMERISM . 154 XIV. ENGLISH MESMERISTS AND HYPNOTISTS . 171 XV. MODERN FRENCH SCHOOLS OF HYPNOTISM . 187 XVI. DREAM STATES AND HYPNOTISM. 201 XVII. THE DANGERS OF HYPNOTISM . 211 XVIII. THE VALUE OF SUGGESTION IN MORAL EDUCATION . 223 XIX. THE EFFECT OF HYPNOTISM ON GENERAL DISEASES . 232 XX. NERVOUS DISORDERS CURED BY HYPNOTISM 239 XXI. CURE OF THE DRINK AND DRUG HABITS . 251 XXII. HOW TO TREAT MENTAL DISORDERS BY HYP- NOTISM AND SUGGESTION, WITH EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL CASES . 260 XXIII. MENTAL HEALERS . 274 INDEX . 287 vii "The investigation of hypnotism is a thing that should not be ignored in England. When the other nations are carefully investigating the physiology and the therapeutic value of this potent influence, it is certainly rather a pity that England should be in the background."--Dr. G. H. SAVAGE, Harveian Oration, 1909. viii Hypnotism and Suggestion CHAPTER I THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND THE mind of man has been a subject of investigation and discussion for thousands of years, and still we know very little of its nature; indeed, it is only during the past century that we have come to recognise that mind is in some mysterious manner related to the grey matter of the brain, which consists of millions of cells, so-called neurons, whose functions are now being explored in the numerous physiological laboratories of the world. There is one point, however, on which scientists are all agreed : that the brain is the structure through whose medium all mental operations take place. Only occultists are not of that opinion ; yet even they must admit that it requires the services of a medium, through whose brain the higher spiritual phenomena are manifested. Provided that the grey surface, i.e., the cortex of the brain, be not affected, all the other portions of a man's organisation may become diseased, or separately de- stroyed, even the spinal cord may become affected, without the mental manifestations being impaired. We think and feel, rejoice and weep, love and hate, hope and fear, plan and destroy, trust and suspect, all through the agency of the brain-cortex. Its cells 1 2 HYPNOTISM AND SUGGESTION record all the events, of whatever nature, which trans- pire within the sphere of existence of the individual, not merely as concerns the intellectual knowledge acquired, but likewise the emotions passed through and the passions indulged in, and whether we can recollect them or not. But the brain, besides being an organ of mind, is also the great regulator of all the functions of the body, the ever-active controller of every organ. For this purpose it has a double set of nerves: firstly, the spinal nerves, which in the normal state are more or less under our voluntary control, enabling us to move our muscles and limbs; and, secondly, the so-called sympathetic nerves, which are not under our voluntary dominion, and go to our internal organs as well as our arteries, controlling the local blood-supply and thus nutrition, and go also to the spinal nerves, thus exerting a brain control over our intentional movements. In this manner-and this is only a rough outline--every organ and every function are represented in the brain, and are so represented that all may be brought into the right relationship and harmony with each other and converted into a vital unity. Thus mind, motion, sensibility, nutrition, repair and drainage have their governing centres in the brain. It is through this central organisation that every bodily function can be afected by a mental act. Thus certain states of mind are apt to be accompanied by various derangements of the functions of the body. Everyone knows how the receipt of an unpleasant letter may make us lose all appetite for food, and even cause us indigestion or headache, how fear may THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 3 actually paralyse the muscles, and keep us "rooted to the spot," how sudden shock will sometimes result in instant death, how long-continued grief or mental strain will sap the strength of the body. And it is no less a fact of observation that when healthy mental states are substituted for unhealthy ones, the functional derangements of the body tend again to disappear. On the other hand, it is owing to the same organisa- tion that our mental disposition can be influenced by the bodily functions. Nobody is constantly the same self. Not only is he a different self at different periods of his life and in different circumstances, but also on different days, according to his different bodily states: sanguine and optimistic, gloomy and pessimistic, frank and genial, reserved and suspicious, apathetic or energetic. Although his intellectual powers remain the same, his judgment of the objective world and his relations to it are quite changed, because of the change in his moods and the bodily states which they imply. Without giving any further illustrations, it will be admitted that there is ample evidence of the inter- action between mind and body, i.e., of the physical effects of mental causes and the mental effects of physical causes. We need not go into details, so long as it is admitted that not only can the body be weakened through the agency of the mind, but it can be strengthened also by that same agency. We are not conscious of the various functions of the organic life of the body, which go on in quiet harmony with the nicest adaptations of means to an end through- out its complex mechanism. By a wise providence of Nature we are not conscious of the working of these 4 HYPNOTISM AND SUGGESTION processes acting between body and mind; we are only conscious of the results, and know nothing of the existence of the machinery, unless it becomes disturbed in one or other of its functions, and the message it then sends to the brain is felt by us as " pain." It is the subconscious or subliminal mind, from which our feelings arise, which through its instrument, the brain, exercises over the muscular, nervous, vaso- motor, and circulatory systems and all the functions of the body a control, and raises them to a power which no conscious effort is capable of. Thus great trials in life furnish us often with extraordinary strength, and we accomplish deeds beyond our usual ability.